It was a very good week to be a horrific, vengeful spirit at the US Box Office, but Ryan Reynolds – who also debuted with something to do with ghosts – is probably feeling a little vengeful himself after a dismal showing with not one, but two movies. James Wan’s The Conjuring easily won the weekend, scoring high marks from critics and an impressive $41.5 million according to studio estimates. Given the thrifty $20 million budget, that’s a big slab of win.

Despicable Me 2 slipped to second place with $25 million but was still more than muscular enough to fight off Turbo – the first of this week’s Reynolds-heavy releases to underperform. DreamWorks’ racing snail ‘toon crawled into third with $21.5 million for the weekend and $31.2 million given its mid-week launch. Fourth was Grown Ups 2, which made $20 million, ahead of Bruce Willis and the OAP CIA gang in Red 2, launching with a low $18.5 million.

Pacific Rim’s monsters vs. robots appeal faltered slightly, falling from third to sixth place, and $15.9 million. Ryan Reynolds’ second film this week, R.I.P.D., flopped badly, arriving with a paltry $12.7 million and inspiring dozens of “DOA” headlines and related puns. Eighth was The Heat, which earned $9.3 million, with World War Z in ninth ($5.2 million) and Monsters University rounding out the top 10 with $5 million.